A few months back I received an email from a designer who was interested in using one of my images on a billboard campaign for Catholic Social Services of Montana. She had found the image in my iStock portfolio, but considering the nature of her advertisement was concerned about some of the language in the iStock licensing agreement (emphasis added) and whether this use would be a violation:

…use or display any Content that features a model or person in a manner that (i) would lead a reasonable person to think that such person uses or personally endorses any business, product, service, cause, association or other endeavor; or (ii) that depicts such person in a potentially sensitive subject matter, including, but not limited to mental and physical health issues, social issues, sexual or implied sexual activity or preferences, substance abuse, crime, physical or mental abuse or ailments, or any other subject matter that would be reasonably likely to be offensive or unflattering to any person reflected in the Content;

After contacting iStock, she was told that the contributing artist (me!) would have to consent to the image being used in this context. When I received her email inquiring about the use of the shot, I gave her a telephone call to get all the details.

Once I had the details the decision was simple for me, I would let the model in the photograph make the decision. I felt this was the best way to go, even though the original image did not require a model release to be included in my portfolio.

As can obviously be seen by the inclusion of the billboard image on this blog post you can see that the model agreed. The designer was kind enough to email me a photo of one of the final billboards.

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, the designer actually read the license agreement and acted accordingly to be sure she was in compliance. Second, I had the opportunity to decide how I would handle a potentially sensitive image use situation and can use this knowledge in the future.

Your thoughts?

(please keep any pro/con discussion on the billboard context out of the comments and limit it to photograph usage)

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10 Comments

As you say, it’s nice to be asked in this situation. There’s a lot of stories that I’ve heard that have played the other way, where photographers have got upset because their images were used in a way they didn’t like.

They also went through a lot of work for a what? A $10 image. Good on them.

I think that in some instances, the potential uses for an image should be considered before making it available to the public. Even though some circumstances might still be legal and within iStock’s policy, some people might not be comfortable being affiliated with certain organizations or causes. I make sure that all of my models understand that the images can be licensed for a variety of uses, but it can still be difficult to think of everything!

I think this was handled extremely well by all involved. Because the photo was in a royalty free stock environment, they designer had no legal responsibility to get clearance. Doing so was a great move on their part in many ways. This is the risk that models make when participating in a shoot where they have signed a release.

That said, I think their choice of photo was also excellent, leaving the models identifying face out of the message, not to mention being a great representation of the emotion they were trying to portray.

I think it does foster the question of how educational might we, as the photographer, need to be before getting a signed release from a model. Do we need to warn them of potential uses for stock photos and what that might mean? That may scare off a few, but is that our ethical obliation?